That's actually a pretty nice and original idea :) . The gameplay was okay, but I found it impossible to locate my character at the beginning of each round, I was just randomly moving until I became visible.

Great game, really hard to find my self, and the menu was a little buggy for me, could never get back out of instructions, had to close and restart

If I close the webstart do I have to redownload it to play again?

Difficult at first but got to be really fun :)

Interesting little game. I'm not sure how I feel about starting out invisible, it's a bit frustrating.

Loved the music. How did you make it?

@lathomas64 it should work offline, if not use the standalone, just double click it.

@Nick K greasemonkey wrote a python script that made them, and i made the sound effects in BFXR.

GM: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/author/greasemonkey/
Script: http://gm.64pixels.org/stuff/atrk-bu.py.txt
OriginalPost: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/12/13/if-you-find-it-hard-to-make-music-read-this/

I enjoyed the game, and the invisibility is central to the game, as well as symbolic, I agree that it makes it a little frustrating at first. I'm not sure I see the tie to evolution?

For what it's worth, the java web start works fine on Ubuntu 12.04.

Anyway, cool game. Simple but fully implemented, I enjoyed it. I agree that it's hard to find yourself in the beginning, but I feel like that's the point. Good work!

I liked the concept, but couldn't get far at all. Lost way to much time attempting to become visible each round.

Wasn't bad at all, simple and decent just like the others said, damn annoying to be invisible but nice game :)

Well,...this is a life game ,isnt it?

I liked it, especially the ending.

Interesting idea. I found it hard to find my dot, especially when the background went red. Also 30MB!!! Did you use .wav files?

It's a cool concept, but the mechanic of being invisible seemed more annoying than anything else - it was almost blind luck whether I was successful or not. Also, it would've been nice if the other dots that were taking things were more visible (and less numerous)...

This was a fun one- I was confused at first by starting as an invisible guy, but I figured out eventually where I was, and I like the metaphor that lack of wealth makes you invisible. The gameplay was pretty basic, and there seemed to be competitors for me on the first level but none on the later ones, so I wasn't really certain what the point was. But it was fun scooting around picking up coins. I liked the background music, but I wish it were a little bit quieter. A complete, working game with unexpected biting social commentary - nice work!

Interesting concept. I need to read the hints, because I didn't realize that you were invisible initially until I read the comments (my bad). In any case levels 2 and 3 are really hard on the eyes; consider a softer color choice.

Thanks you guys, keep leaving comments :)

I may release a post-compo in the future, with a couple changes that I think we both would like.


@Kuulog Yes I used wav files, Is there a smaller one that I could use in java? Also I think it might be large because there are a couple unused files that were going to be more levels, but i will try to make smaller.

@SGT Yea I changed the story after I was halfway through and realized that it wasnt the best story for the theme but if you want a tie, you could say that the main character /evolved/ socially.

@dalbinblue When I showed IRC an early version, they said the same thing about the colors but the reason they are so saturated are because it was the easiest way to handled the colors without thinking too much of it.

In java you create a custom color by writing: Color name = new Color( r, g, b, A); with r,g,b and A as numbers less than 255. What I did was each level was a different color, level one was red, two was blue and three was green. This made it easier because I could just use wealth as the variable for the color.

For example for the first level the color was: col = new Color(wealth/2, 0, 0, 255); So that when you got 500 (510 originally) points, you would be at full saturation and be the same color as the next background, then on level two it would be: col = new Color(255, 0, wealth/2, 255); and so on.

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A couple things that influenced me in the story part were, 'The Last Book in the Universe' by Rod Philbrick and the movie 'In Time' (2011) starring Justin Timberlake, Olivia Wilde and Amanda Seyfried. I would highly suggest those.

In the book, the world is separated into two groups of people, the commoners and the proovs which are genetically engineered to be better, think super-natural selection.

That gave me the idea of evolving to be wealthy.

In the movie, everyone is engineered so that once they turn 25, their 'clock' turns on and they have one year of time. When your clock hits zero, you die. Everything is based on time, its the new currency: "the more wealthy, the longer you live."

That idea is the reason you need to hurry (or else).

Also in the movie, inorder to cross 'time zones' you had to pay a toll, which was a way to keep the social classes separate, so the rich, who were also the oldest, lived on one side of the country and poor on the other.

And that is the reason, you need money to get closer to your parents and the people who could help you find them.

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Thanks again for the positive feedback and for playing the game. :)

-Gabe

Concept is good, but I had the hardest time seeing my character

interesting idea - but it reminds me a lot of a visual test ;)

A very frustrating concept! Took me a while to realise what was going on, that I had to earn the ability to see my character :P (should have read the hints) - Would have been better to have transparent characters I think, so that when they overlap the invisible ones don't overwrite the visible ones.

Good thing you can stand out not only with wealth in real life:) Nice Metaphor.

Very interesting concept

Simple but clever idea. I've got admit I found the invisible idea a bit frustrating too, but understand that it's important/central to the whole game. Maybe the odd flash that shows where you are would help - sort of like 1 second of fame. ;-)

it was okay, but tedious at times.
PS: there was a SUPER BUSLOAD of lag.
just saying

Besides not being able to find my character for about a minute this was a pretty fun and unique game, well done! =)